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Remember to Forget – “My X-Men, Kill Each Other For My Amusement…Er…Wait, I Mean to Prove You’re Not Skrulls!”

In this series we spotlight comic book stories that are likely best left forgotten. Here is an archive of past installments.

Today we look at another one of Profesor Xavier’s oddest “mess with the X-Men for some convoluted reason” plots…

To set the scene for Uncanny X-Men #375 (by Alan Davis, Terry Kavanagh, Adam Kubert, Matt Banning and Tim Townsend), note that Wolverine has seemingly been killed in Astonishing X-Men #3. This news brings all the various X-Men back to Westchester to see about their fallen friend. Once there, Beast and Moira MacTaggert begin an autopsy on Wolverine while Professor X calls a meeting of the rest of the team (Archangel leaves to go notify Psylocke).

Once in the meeting, they all begin criticizing each other. Like Xavier giving Cyclops crap about letting Wolverine die or Cyclops giving Storm crap about letting Magneto take over Genosha. Stuff like that. They continue arguing until Xavier makes an abrupt announcement…

Things descend into chaos from that point on, as the various X-Men all attack and kill each other off one by one. Here’s a snippet…

Does Adam Kubert draw the hell out of the X-Men slaughtering each other? Well, yes, but that’s beside the point. Anyhow, it comes down to just two X-Men left, Gambit and Kitty Pryde (who each spend some final time with their respective estranged loves, Rogue and Colossus, as they die), although each see the main villain as someone different as they, too, succumb to the black void of death…

…and then we learn that the whole thing was a trick by Xavier to figure out if any of the X-Men present are Skrulls (well, he knows the X-Men were infiltrated by an impostor, I dunno if he knew specifically Skrulls)…

Obviously, the infiltrator is revealed at the end of the issue to be Wolverine, who has been replaced by a Skrull.

Late 1950s/early 1960s Superman called Xavier, he found your plan way too convoluted and needlessly cruel (with that in mind, I think I’ll categorize this under And of Course, as well). Damn, Xavier. This isn’t even in his top TEN deceptions, which is perhaps the most depressing thing about this story.

Okay, that’s it for this installmnent!

If you have a suggestion for a comic book plot that is best off forgotten, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com.